Tuesday, January 5, 2010

DSL- Digital as a Second Language

Hi everyone. This is my very first blog. In order to get my feet wet, I am basing this entry on an article from my website, everythingESL.net.

“Are we writing on the computer today?” my eager 4th grade beginners asked as they piled into the ESL classroom. My English language learners are suddenly excited about writing. They enter my classroom with enthusiasm and leave reluctantly. Last year I wouldn’t have believed it possible. What brought about my students’ enthusiasm for writing? The purchase of wireless Apple iBook laptops for the ESL classroom has transformed the way I teach my English language learners. I have seen remarkable progress in their writing and in their motivation to learn.

When I first started to use a computer about 19 years ago, it took a while before I felt comfortable writing directly in a word processing program. In contrast, I’ve found that most of my students prefer writing directly on the computer. This has a huge impact on writing because students are much more disposed to edit and rewrite. They are also more willing to begin by putting their ideas on a graphic organizer and developing their compositions from there. As a result, the length and depth of their written work has greatly increased and they are more willing to expand on their ideas. Most importantly, they have become much more enthusiastic about writing, and projects that once took weeks are now completed in a few days.

According to Mark Presensky (2001), today’s students are “digital natives”. By this he means that they have grown up in an environment that has always included computers, the Internet, cell phones, digital cameras, and MP3 players. We, the teachers of these digital natives, are what Presensky calls “digital immigrants”. We speak “digital” as a second language (DSL). We grew up in a drastically different text-based environment and even if we have tried to keep up with current technology, we speak this language with an accent. Presensky contends that our educational system was not designed to teach today’s students.

Technology has had an enormous influence on my teaching. I feel that elementary-age students need to be encouraged to do research, take notes, and write on computers. This keeps them engaged. As an example, let me explain a project I developed for my 4th grade intermediate learners.

In response to a fictional story we read, I asked my students to describe a place where they enjoyed spending time. They first arranged their ideas on a graphic organizer using Kidspiration software. They completed this organizer directly on the computer. One of my best writers, Erin, wrote the organizer to show three activities that she liked to do at the park.

From this outline, I asked Erin to expand the information under “Have fun with my family.” Her resulting organizer showed three ways she had fun with her family in the park. Next, I asked Erin to write about the badminton game that she had listed on our organizer. Here is what she wrote:

The last time I went to the park, I play badminton with my family. We divide into two teams and play against each other. I practice badminton with my dad for a whole week so I thought I could beat my cousins. Unfortunately, I was wrong. My cousins are much better than me!

You can see how Erin expanded one part of her organizer and fleshed it out so that it became a paragraph of her completed essay. She repeated this technique with each part of her organizer.

With 5th & 6th grade groups, I used Inspiration. With the latest version, my students could research information for a report or other writing assignment and organize it on a template in Inspiration directly on their laptops. They can spell check their work, use a thesaurus or dictionary, change the organizer into an outline and export that outline to their word processing program. These outlines become their frame for writing.

Let’s face it, students do not learn in the same way that they did ten years ago. We can blame technology or we can use it to our advantage. We can no longer, however, teach in the same way. Even though digital may be our second language, as digital immigrants we can become more collaborative in our approach, while learning from the digital natives in our classes.

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About Me

Hi everyone. My name is Judie Haynes. In this blog I will write about the challenges of teaching ELLs in the general education, ESL and bilingual classrooms. I am the author and co-author of 7 books, the most recent being The Essential Guide for Educating Beginning English Learners (with Debbie Zacarian, Corwin,2012.) I taught elementary ESL for 28 years; and am currently providing professional development to school districts.
I am co-founder and owner of the website everythingESL.net. This website celebrated its 13th birthday in September, 2012. I am also co-founder and co-moderator of #ELLCHAT, a Twitter educational chat group.